The Money Show
by agirlwho
Summary: crawling in the shadows, I only have a vague idea ofrnwhere I'm going, but Jessie is gone and the only thought thatrnconsumes me is the need to find her, so I keep going.
1. A Muddled Perception

**Title: The Money Show **

**Chapter-1**

**Author: The Narrator**

**Category: Adventure, Film Noire**

**Rated: R, just to be safe.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the JQ characters, HB does, they are being used without permission. I am deeply appologetic.**

**Archivers: The ones that still exist- do what ye will.**

**Chapter 1- A Muddled Perception**

I slip another yellow pill in my mouth. This is a mess of 200mg of caffeine and artificial food coloring that has been compressed to a ball of puss that we have conditioned ourselves to find edible.

The days stretch on, the hours hurling themselves in dizzying circles around in my head, crashing into one another and confusing their order in my memory. I can't remember the last time that I slept. I might have drifted off in the cab a couple minutes ago, or last week before Jessie went missing. The caffeine keeps my eyes open, at any rate.

Jade popped up out of nowhere, suddenly hightailing it out of Vegas, dropping fake passports along the way and she probably needed money. I guess that's why she thought of me- some daft rich kid who received one whopper of an undeserved inheritance when he turned 18 and had too many emotional attachments for the good of someone with that kind of money.

Besides, what would ickle Jonny care if she transferred a couple thousand dollars from one bank account to another anyways? And I might actually not have. If that was all that she had done. But Jade was never simple. Theft was child's play to her- boring and as dangerous as spray painting your own wall.

We pass acres of corn fields, flashes of green and brown and yellow whipping by so fast that I might be hallucinating it. I am again reminded of the time- the minutes tangling together until they become a useless mass of undefined sub-meanings and blurred, repetitive images.

I think of Jessie. She could be out here, anywhere. I imagine her huddled behind the enormous stalks of corn, hiding from the traffic, Jade's crooked blade at her throat and her voice ringing sharply in her ear, "stay down and keep your mouth shut." And my stomach convulses thinking of the pieces I've already received of her.

Jade always had a way of explaining things in such an unquestionable way that cut clear through your soul and carried your intestines right out with it on the other side without ever saying a word. I met her one night while she was smacking on my bodyguard. I have basically two or three full memories of her altogether, but they are impressionable ones. I was particularly amazed by how well it seemed she was able to make out and yank twenty dollar bills from closed wallets at the same time. I was nearly mesmerized by it until the poor man went temporarily broke.

Another thing about her was how she loved to pick out all the short ends of every stick and make damn sure that his daughter got every one of them. That about her managed to piss me off pretty bad because the daughter and I had something of a relationship even then. Five years later, we're live-in boyfriend and girlfriend and this little problem with Jade has inspired me to pick up gun collecting.

I lean forward, toward the driver, close enough for my breath to violate the back of his neck. "How much farther?" I barely recognize my own voice- a jumble of lost vowels and consonants, hopping around and redefining, themselves, where they really belong.

"Close enough for you to get out and walk if you don't shut up."

Apparently, I have not allowed enough time since I last asked this. I sit back in my seat. I am the fat kid with ice cream smeared on his chin and shirt, crying, "are we there, yet? Are we there, yet?"

I can't remember five words that I ever said to Jade in all the times I had ever seen her, but she knew enough about me to track me down to the very bed I slept in. About the clear cut messages- she managed to deliver the first one to me without a hitch. Three fingernails and a lock of red hair tied uneasily neat with a pretty little green ribbon.


	2. Jockstraps

**Title: The Money Show**

**Chapter: 2**

**Author: The Narrator**

**Category: Adventure, Film Noire**

**Rated: R, just to be safe.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the JQ characters, HB does, they are being used without permission. I am deeply appologetic.**

**Archivers: The ones that still exist- do what ye will.**

**Chapter 2- Jockstraps**

Jade, apparently knows a guy in a bar on a street in downtown D.C. That's all Race really knows for sure about the woman other than the fact that she's a masochist and possibly bisexual. I believe that there isn't anything more that he can tell me that might be helpful because it was his fucking daughter who was kidnapped and I know he wants to find her as bad as I do. But that doesn't change the fact that it's absolutely nothing.

Jade is trying to pull something and my mind is too clouded to grasp what it is just yet. Even if I did give her the money, I would still stalk her until the day that I died or slit her throat, whichever came first, simply because I have sick coming out my pores for how I feel about all this kind of shit. I can't sit still for long enough to figure out a way to get her the money, anyways, and I think that she has to know at least this much about me.

This could possibly really be more about Race than either me or Jessie, or money, even. It sounds like a good way to trap a thoughtless, head-first kind of guy like me, if that was what she was planning on and neither of these scenarios would surprise me, but as far as figuring out which it is or even trying to not end up hanging by my toes in Jade's hotel room- this is just trying to factor in too much. I'm already in the cab, giving the driver vague directions to a general area in D.C. and tossing him hundred dollar bills, carelessly. It's a one way trip from here, but I've been past caring since I could ride a bike.

Jockstraps. It's amazing what junkies will come up with to call themselves, sometimes.

Blinking puts my stinging eyes through more hell and I can already feel the pills turning my brain to pig feed. Throughout the course of my life, I have continuously gathered that there are basically eight people in my life that I will actually care about at any given time. Jockstraps is not one of them.

I have been jumping bars for 36 hours straight now, with only an indefinite description of what I may or may not be looking for, and I am well aware that this is probably the least productive thing I could be doing in all this. Already, I know that Race and even my dad are making twice as much headway back home as I am, sleep deprived and wandering about curious street corners, trying to find someone that I may have already passed on the sidewalk somewhere and didn't know. But I was never one of those negotiating over a phone types of people, I could certainly make peace with a homicidal ghost, in person, but when it came to over the phone… I'd probably end up cussing Jade out and get Jessie shot.

But Jockstraps is going to be my new best friend. I hold his bloodied nose ring between middle and index finger, admiring my work. This really isn't like me, but my girlfriend is tied up somewhere, missing three fingernails and a bit of hair, and it's just occurred to me that there is actually no way that Jade could have taken Jessie out on her own. The nose ring was ugly, anyway. He looked like some new species of cattle with it.

I had seen Jockstraps one time several years ago, making some trade with Jade in the dark corners of her massive bedroom while Race's back was turned. This was back when his name was something more like Christopher or Michael or at least something that wasn't a pitiful attempt to keep his pants from falling down around his ankles.

I might be a madman, but the guy was just sitting around one of these shady bars I'm looking in, twitching periodically, probably tripping on acid and I either just don't believe in coincidences or I simply hate him for being associated with Jade in my memory. I'm too tired and can only decipher so many thoughts in my own head at once, so I don't actually know which it is. At any rate, he's the closest thing I have to Jade, so I waited around to see what he did.

The way he wigged when catching a glimpse of me staring at him from the far wall inspired me to follow him out a back door and down the ill-lit alley way behind. He was half running, half walking, casting his eyes clumsily over his shoulders, trying to be elusive, but too cracked out to concentrate. I suppose I was calm through this as I silently stalked towards him, several yards behind. I don't think I was worried about being able to catch up with him if he decided to run, and there was really no reason to make official contact quite yet. I may be a bit out of it, myself, but this guy is a broken pigeon flapping vainly on the soiled cement before a stray cat.

Slipping through the front door behind him was easy as walking into my own bedroom. He had the phone in hand, whipping out rapid Spanish into the receiver end of it, but I'm sure that China could hear him anyways, and I heard my name. I was about to take it from him, try to get at least some idea of who he was talking to before somebody hung up, but it went flying past my head and into the wall behind before I could even take the first step.

He was muttering some profanities to the mirror and I see why these drugs are illegal.

I stash the likely diseased nose ring into a front pocket. I could make some use out of that later. It's not fingernails or hair, but I'm sure that it could send a message to his and Jade's friends fine enough. I'm not here to play hopscotch.

Jockstraps cowers behind the bed, clenching his nose, screaming about Batman and Poison Ivy. This might not all be lunacy because I think I remember something about Poison Ivy being codename for Jade, once. Of course, I always thought that Jade might be some codename for Jade. Her name is probably really Gretchen or something like that.

Jockstrap is sputtering something about how Poison Ivy is going to kill him if… but after I collect the rest of his facial piercings, he tells me that Jade was at the Hades River with Batman and Raven not two days ago. One of these characters is the one that I am looking for, the one that knows Race and Jade. I passed this place last night and might have barely missed Jade.

I might stick around to see if Jockstraps knows anything about Jessie, but he is currently spreading his breakfast across the floor, and I don't think that he could tell me anything else coherent even if he did know about her. I take his wallet and every form of identification I can find. I'll be able to find this guy later if I need to.


	3. The Hades River

**Title: The Money Show**

**Chapter: 3**

**Author: The Narrator**

**Category: Adventure, Film Noire**

**Rated: R, just to be safe.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the JQ characters, HB does, they are being used without permission. I am deeply appologetic.**

**Archivers: The ones that still exist- do what ye will.**

**Chapter 3- The Hades River**

The Hades River is much like the name might suggest, which I think might be referring to the hellish toxins that flow from the tap. It's more of a strip joint than a bar in actuality. I'm curious that this is the one place that Race can connect Jade to.

My lungs burn when I walk in. There is more smoke than air and I think, for a moment, that I might be swimming. I try not to cough and wheeze like the day-dwelling sap that I am, incompetent to function properly in places that aren't as bright, clean and sunny as I would like them to be. I can barely breath or see and I squint my eyes, trying to make out whatever is past the thick haze.

There is an unlit cigarette lying on the counter. It's partly smashed and looks to have been carelessly discarded, nobody's property, now. I pick it up and mash the tobacco between my teeth. It's the worst shit I have ever tasted, but chewing on random disgusting drugs seems like what the average wanderer would do in a place like this. My cloths are probably too clean, my shoes too rich, and my face too unscathed to fit in here. I imagine my eyes are damn bloodshot by now, which could be good. The last thing I want to look like is a rich, well-kept cop posing as a drug dealer, here. That'll get you killed, and these guys have always got their noses to you, trying to snuff out your intentions like dogs that can smell fear.

I need more caffeine and I fish in my pocket for another one of the pills. I swallow it without water and I hardly see her coming before there is a bouncing blond leaning against my chest. Her teeth look newly bleached, laced with bright orange lipstick and brunette-rooted pigtails sway teasingly across her bare shoulders. She is wearing a raunchy little nurse outfit and Hollywood imitation combat boots buckled to the knees.

She twirls a skinny little finger in my hair, smacking her gum inches from my face. "What's your sign, cowboy?"

I get the sudden irrational urge to backhand her straight across the face. I think I've been up too long and am just getting way too irritable. I keep my arms rigidly at my sides, repeating in my head that she couldn't possibly know how obscene this all is to me- that my girlfriend is likely bound and beaten, on some crack head's bathroom floor with pieces of her in various parts of the country, while some hooker reaches a hand into my back pocket. I still don't know what's come over me, though. I wasn't raised like this. I think of Race, and, although I never knew him as a particularly violent man, I easily get the vivid image of him beating me stupid if he could hear even my thoughts right now.

I try to force a smile, but probably achieve something closer to the look of a mad man about to bite off the tip of her tongue. I snatch her hand out of my hair and tell her that I am gay.

She cringes apologetically, "I'm sorry," she says, "you don't look it. I have some friends…" but there's something else in her eyes, like she can see the very reason I'm lying and finds it funny.

I kiss the back of her hand, "happens all the time, but no thanks. I'm on my own tonight." She gives me the look of a girl who has just seen a penis for the first time, and I think that she has likely never had this happen to her, before. She touches my shoulder, and her lips twitch and she reminds me of a child who has just stolen from his mother only to find that she was going to give it to him, anyway. I am tempted to ask.

There's flash of black and blue out the corner of my eye and this is the guy I'm looking for. The blond fades from my consciousness as quickly as she had come in. I am now shifting from shadow to shadow. I've lit the cigarette for some reason and can't remember if I was going to smoke it or not. I can't think of any reason why I would, so I let it dangle between two fingers in my left hand, occasionally flicking the ashes to the floor.

The Raven moves in a direct way, like he has no peripheral vision, and, therefore, the world around him must not exist at all. I have come up with at least three flimsy plans to follow him past the curtains he disappears behind on the other side of an "Employees Only" counter when a raspy, disconnected voice spins me on my heels, my body reacting faster than my mind, "I guess Jade was right about you, after all." This really shouldn't surprise me at all. I'm reminded of the trap I was contemplating earlier.


End file.
